Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 22:09:48 EDT
Reply-To: Trvlr2001@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Carpenter <Trvlr2001@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: 3.3 verses 4.3 verses 1.9???
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Right on the mark points!
If you are using this vehicle for the purposes it was intended,
(talking camper bus here)
the diesel is the only way to go,
and go far!
thanks,
John C...
In a message dated 7/25/2004 2:28:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
vanagon@volkswagen.org writes:
My I make a suggestion? 1.9L TDI - Using an ALH TDI from a 1999 - 2003 Golf
/ Jetta.
GROUND AND ENGINE COVER CLEARANCE:
You loose no ground clearance. Syncro skid plate goes back in stock
location with no welding or shims. Engine cover does have to be modified
about 2.5" - the ALH is a shallower motor than the old AHU from 1995 to
1998 - the AHU required about 3.5" to 4.0" assuming you down shim the engine
lower in the engine bay at the expense of ground clearance.
STOCK POWER:
For get horse power, this is what sell vehicles but this isn't really what
you drive your heavy Vanagon with. The TDI does have more useable
horsepower than any stock motor in the Vanagon. See
http://www.fastforward.ca/VanagonSwap/AHU/ahu.jpg for a torque and power
chart of the TDI vs the wasserboxer engines. It doesn't have horse power
than the GM or Subi motor but the acceleration is still much better than any
stock Vanagon motor. Torque is what you want to look at. The TDI makes
full a 155ft.lbs of torque at 1900 RPM and it doesn't stop pulling until
about 3800 RPM. When you look at the Vanagon tachometer, you see that this
is the green area, which is where you Vanagon gearing is designed to run.
Upgrading your fuel injectors to the European 0.205mm injectors ($500
Canadian / $375 USD) and installing an inexpensive tweak to the injector
pump wiring you will now have 120hp and 230ft.lbs of torque as people have
posted at http://www.tdiclub.com
ECONOMY:
The TDI is cheap to drive. I can now travel about 600km on a tank of Diesel
and the fuel is at least 25% cheaper than gasoline assuming that you use 87
octane. This is with the modified TDI in the back of my Syncro. Before the
conversion I could only get 450km. That means 1.5h more between fillups.
In short, you can drive almost twice as far per dollar on Diesel as you can
with [premium] gasoline. I did a complete TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for
the TDI engine using published VW maintenance schedules - see
http://www.fastforward.ca/VanagonConversion/TDI%20Conversion%20FAQ.pdf for
the costs involved in owning a TDI and other tid-bits of information.
INSTALLATION:
Installing a TDI is not any more complicated than install a Subaru engine,
infact, I think it is easier as the wiring is a lot less complicated and
there is a complete plug and play conversion kit available for it. With our
complete conversion kit at http://www.fastforward.ca/VanagonConversion you
can install a TDI in about 20h start to finish with no fabrication of parts
other than a box for your engine cover - any sheet metal shop can do that
for about $40.
LONGEVITY:
I think for long term longevity the jury is still out. The VW dealership in
Prince George has a few TDI customers with 400.000+ kms on their motor with
no issues at all. To me, this is pretty good. I have a Turbo Diesel Golf
with 690.000km on it and it is still going - consuming 1L / 1000km of oil,
but hey, it DOES have 690.000km on it - I'm not complaining!
I know I will never purposely install a gasoline engine into a Vanagon now,
not with today's unstable fuel pricing and pressures that we are putting on
this earth from the green house gases we produce with our gasoline engines.
Most people who get TD and TDI kits from us are doing it so they can run
BioDiesel or Straight Veggie Oil - which is GHG neutral and when running
Veggie Oil it is significantly cheaper than Diesel fuel - that of course is
another subject to be discussed at a different time.
David Marshall
